The Doctor's Daughter- Regeneration
by StarkyGirl
Summary: Ella-Marie Stark had never believed her father that regeneration was possibly the most painful thing their race could suffer. To her it was just energy that fixed him but she was to suffer the same fate her father had countless times... ( I do not own Doctor Who but I do own Ella-Marie Stark)


He described it as the most painful thing in the world; they clarified it as the most excruciating thing to witness. She thought they were lying.

It's a fateful thing to not believe the words when the Doctor tells the truth; Ella had learnt that from the moment she had witnessed one of his past regenerations. Her father, the last of the Time Lords needed her to learn every patch of her species in case she ever had the ability to change.

The first time she witnessed her father's regeneration, it was from his ninth face to his tenth. Rose was curled up against the TARDIS floor as the burst of energy erupted from the dying body of her father.

Of course there was little she could do, her father kept her in the shadows with a hand over her mouth to silence her and an arm around her waist to keep her from escaping. Ella still had not quite taken in the intensity of it all as she stood idly by, her father letting her really see it for herself.

For a moment her father tugged Rose from her time loop, into a part of time she would never remember once placed back. Rose's eyes widened as she circled the pair of them, "You're… the Doctor?" She murmured, noting that he looked nothing like the one she was with now. She had grilling questions to ask them but for some reason she felt she could only answer their questions.

"How did it feel?" Ella finally asked after much silence, she was curious but not afraid. Rose raised her brows then glanced at the Doctor, her Doctor, as he pranced around the console before collapsing from the energy loss. "Feel? Watching him change like that?" Rose murmured softly, trying to wrap her head around things. "I felt useless, unable to do anything. He was in so much pain, so much twisted agony and I couldn't even touch him."

There was anger in the blonde haired girl's eyes. The fact she couldn't do anything to ease the pain of a broken man as he technically died before her, that's what made Ella ask more questions. She delved in further to the pain, the guilt, every raw emotion dripped from every word that Rose spoke. Those tears she let slip were genuine, her feelings… far too real for Ella to accept.

She took a fleeting glance over to her father's previous incarnation and noted how weak he looked, the utter terror he must have felt as he changed. Ella still didn't believe that such a thing could be so excruciating.

The Doctor finally returned Rose to her time line, oblivious to who she had just met. As she rushed over to her Doctor's side, Ella felt a crushing weight hit home for a few moments because she sort of felt that connection when her father was shot down by her own mother back at Lake Silencio. 

"You say that it is painful but all I see is a warm light encasing you, giving you comfort and ease where life cannot," Ella was sceptic over the whole thing in all honesty but her father could not believe the attitude she had taken to such a thing. "Ella this is something not to be taken lightly!" He protested with great displeasure in his voice as he swanned off to the other side of the TARDIS console.

Ella had not a clue what to say to that, it looked like a process of ease and fiery warmth. The Doctor knew different though, he knew the pain that came with it. It was spine crushing, soul breaking and above all truly terrifying. You never knew what you where going to get, never knew how your body would cope and above all, how bad your personality was going to be.

The whole process was literally a re-jumble of the DNA he possessed, to fix what was broken and replace it with something new, something different. The pain that seared through his very body was enough to send any person howling to the nut house. When it reached his hearts, it was as if someone was ripping his chest open with their bare hands. Unbearable. That was what it was.

When your ears couldn't take a sound, it forced ringing in your ears or when your body went numb and forced every muscle to tense and shake beneath the ache. That was what he suffered every time he regenerated. He needed Ella to be prepared for such a thing if the day ever came.

He decided to leave her with his previous incarnation for a few hours, to let him truly tell her what it felt like. Ella was fed up with her father's teachings, she couldn't bare another one but her father was determined. "Ella you have to understand that it's not just about the pain of the regeneration but the pain of living with a whole new body, a whole new personality!" He wrung his hands as he paced around to her, pleading with her to understand.

"How hard can it be?! Having a new face means a new persona, a new life to start again!" Ella was seeing it all from a better side of it all but she never realised what came with a new face. For instance, his eleventh face had first lay eyes on Amelia Pond and there and then he formed a brilliant attachment to her, his daughter's grandmother. Surely Ella would have understood from that why she was so close to him. When she was born, the Doctor was the first to hold her and when she opened her eyes, his face was the first face she saw.

It was a shame that she would not know this until the day she had to face a death. This saddened him so because he knew no matter how much he could protect her, no matter what he did to keep her safe from the beasts that resided in the universe; she was still destined to die like he was.

The curse of the Time Lords.

To suffer.

To drink up the guilt.

That day finally came; the gun shot finally took her down and floored her. Her eyes widened as she heard the muffle cries of her mother before she dropped to her knees and slipped against the glass flooring of the TARDIS. The heavy and trembled breathing of her father echoed out just below the tones of her mother's screams, it seemed her entire set of senses had heightened.

The floor was icy cold against her heated skin, her heart rate seemed to be of that of a double one. It was frightful in all honesty. At this point she was starting to regret not believing her father because the surge of pain that surged through her entire body felt like someone had cut her and slashed her from the inside out. Fingers clawed at the floor, her body shook as she gasped and groaned, silently begging for a release of some sorts. "Stop… It..." She begged with short lazy words, tears slipping down her cheeks and pooling on the floor around her cheek that rest upon the glass.

Of course it wouldn't stop; it was nature of her species to do this, to suffer her regeneration. Now on her back, vision blurred and the world now silent around her as she felt warm hands against her icy body. She was numb for the time being, the ache was something she could stand for the time being until there and then… it happened.

It felt as if a bomb had been dropped on her, her whole back arched as her spine felt as if it was being crushed and snapped into a new shapes and dimensions. Her brain ached with a tremendous pain, enough to make her want to claw out every last brain cell. She found her voice and screamed out, forcing her voice to go hoarse in displeasure.

Hands began to tug at her shirt, her own hands. Nails clawed at the skin of an English Rose, eyes as blue as the ocean rolled back into the skull they were attached to. No person would suffer something this horrendous... Never.

Could one deny the pain of someone carving into them with a sharpened blade, or someone who felt their arm break under pressure? Yes they could but regeneration was virtually impossible to deny, it was there, in your mind and in your heart, tearing at your very lifelines.

It was like dying, it was as if your body was suffering everything at once. It all eased a little when a soft glow began to encase her. Golden and pure, something of warmth and contradicted the pain she encountered. It blast from her hands and legs in a rain of chaos, her whole body healing and fixing itself.

A sudden pang of staying hit her; she didn't want to go, to lose her face and personality, to be a whole new person. Well that was how she saw it.

It eventually faded, her whole body now in a deep sleep, wrapping up the last of her healing. Her pale cheeks had become stained with tears, her breathing was still ragged and faint and there was an odd _thump-thump thump-thump_ pounding in her chest at a reasonably calm rate.

The Doctor and River were kneeling either side of their daughter, both holding a hand each, the Doctor letting a tear slip down his cheek at his own actions, for forcing this upon her. River stroked her daughter's forehead with a thumb, motherly and lovingly, it was what she was there to do.

"Sorry…. I'm so sorry…"

Those words were what filled the TARDIS in a soft murmur; the world around them had been muffled and broken as of now. Did he really expect his daughter to wake up, she hadn't even changed face like he would when faced with such a catastrophe.

All hope was lost. You see regeneration is not about the process, the pain from it is not just focused on the one person, not just the one who feels it. What of those who had to watch it?

Rose Tyler

Sarah Jane Smith

Clara Oswald

River Song

Amy Pond

Rory Williams

Even the Doctor himself.

It breaks hearts, it fixes them at times but then, does it merely save them forever or just glue them together until the next force breaks them?

Ella did awaken though; she was lucky to have the gene that allowed a complete re-heal and prevented a physical change. Her personality changed on the other hand but her memories stayed.

The pain stayed with her. A small fear for it now resided within her.

From her lips she would say Hallelujah the moment it was over for it was mercy on her.


End file.
